Continuing the previous Post, people blocked at this stage have difficulties with sexual interaction and with having intimacy in sex and/or relationships, because they don’t have well-structured sexual identities of the other sex/complementary energy. When faced with highly erotic and desired situations that demand their sexual identities of the opposite sex/complementary energy, they may get into a phobic escalation process that goes from: felling uneasy, very embarrassed, or even panic. To unconsciously avoid these situations, people resort to: 1) Masturbation, 2) Low eroticized relationships and 3) Eroticized and desired situations that do not demand role reversal or being in tune with masculine drive (in women’s case) and being in tune with feminine drive (in men’s case), i.e their complementary energies. Possible Sexual Partners- Are the ones with whom it is possible to establish a relationship with sexual discharge but without erotic intimacy or, in other words, people with whom they have sexual behaviors with no sexual interaction. Avoided Sexual Partners- Heterosexual eroticized relationships: -What is avoided is erotic intimacy/complicity with desired partners of the opposite sex, i.e enjoying sexual interaction. Homosexual eroticized relationships: -What is avoided is erotic intimacy/complicity with the complementary energy, i.e enjoying sexual interaction, as well. The most common characteristic of all anguishes related to sexual identity blocks is pattern of systematic avoidance (or repetition) that is created. As a result, memories linked to the conflicts end up being “erased” from consciousness. As time goes by, these memories are forgotten and, hence, they don’t bring anxiety or come deliberately as material to be worked out in psychotherapy.
For more details see Dias in Post 3-Transition stage -transition stage blocks, in Essay 4: Sexual Identity development Blocks, in:www.ceciliapsicologa.org/ Chapter VII-Anguishes regarding sexual partners. Episode 2-YouTube-Talking about psychology with Cecília Leite Sexual identity blocks become more subtle as development unfolds. People blocked in transition stage are expected to know what it is like to enjoy erotic desire in their own bodies, so as to keep highly eroticized and desired situations. Phobic escalation may happen if situations demand erotic complicity. It commonly brings huge suffering, and it is hard to diagnose because people, most of the times, don’t realize they aren’t able to and enjoy their partners’ desire. They are erotically attracted to their partners and, many times, romantically committed to relationships, but repeat a kind of “neurotic destiny” in which situations /relationships highly desired are meant to fail. To be continued in the next Post
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